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2013-08-10

Sorok Island, Colony of a Colony

This is my statement of Youth Forum in which I participated on 24 July, 2013
The Youth Forum was one of the programs of the 5th International History NGOs Conference(http://www.historyngo.org/), and seven international students gave presentations on the theme of Regional Cooperation and Historical Reconciliation in East Asia

South
Korea is currently one of advanced countries in the world, but the history
Korea has gone through was by no means ‘smooth sailing’. The Joseon Dynasty,
the last dynasty of Korea, was officially annexed to the Japanese Empire in
1910, and Japanese ruling had lasted until it surrendered to the Allied Forces
in 1945. However, despite the liberation, Korea was divided into two parts along
with the international circumstance of the Cold War, which led to Korean
War(1950-1953). In the end, two Koreas were respectively established in the
North and the South, and have been following different social and economic
systems.

Thus,
Korean modern history is too complicated to be told as a single story, since
many different interests are entangled in the Korean modern history. Even though,
Korean media reports dealing with historical issues are generally emotional and
nationalistic. In particular, they tend to emphasis on brutalities of the
Japanese Empire. Such a provocative media report is appealing to most Koreans,
and Korean people’s animosity towards Japan becomes more expanded. This
situation is believed to become much stronger in our society which brief and
instant information is preferred. In this regard, the following story of Sorok
Island will give a deeper insight on Korean modern history.

▲ the island had been absolutely isolated before a bridge was built in 2009

Sorok
Island, literally meaning of ‘little deer island’, is off the southwestern
coast of Korea, and it has been a prime example of a leper colony of Korea
since the Japanese Empire established it in 1916. Leprosy, known as Hansen’s
Disease to Koreans, is a chronic infection caused by bacteria Mycobacterium Leprae discovered by the
Norwegian physician Hansen. For decades, however, leprosy had commonly been believed
to be highly infectious, and lepers have also received disdainful treatment
from the general public because of its disfigured appearance.

▲ a scene from movie 'Benhur'(1959)

mother and sister of the main character suffered from leprosy

▲ a scene from Korean TV drama 'Heojun'

the two films' huge success perpetuated the stigma associated with leprosy

However, leprosy
is neither a highly contagious disease nor a genetic disease and it can be also
cured with a sustained course of antibiotics, yet the island had been isolated
before the building of a bridge connecting the island and the mainland in 2009.
On the island, several old buildings including the only one Japanese shrine
left in the Korean peninsula are well preserved for the purpose of history
education.

Most
Korean social media reports show narrative style as follows[2]; Sorok island started its
history of a leper colony under the Japanese Empire. The patients were forcibly
ferried to the island from all over the Korean Peninsula, and compelled to be
confined and sterilized to prevent leprosy from spreading. The buildings like an autopsy room, a sterilization room
and a detention barrack still remain on the island, and show visitors how
miserable their lives were.

▲ autopsy and sterilization were conducted in this building

In addition to this, patients also had to labor
from dawn to dusk. As the Pacific war was intensified, exploitation was getting
more vicious to the island. Patients provided timber and pine resin for the
Japanese Empire. A Japanese shrine was also erected on the island, so everyone
had to pray there, regardless of their religion. In particularly, Masasue Suo,
the fourth hospital director, was notorious for cruelty like torture or
beatings. He even erected a statue modeled after him on a hill to which
patients were forced to bow every morning. In the end, his tyranny ended when an outraged patient stabbed him to death.

▲ patients bowing to the statue of Suo

This is how Korean media tell a history. The information above is
not altogether false, but such an approach would
be dangerous, because readers may think that all problems were caused by
Japanese. Above all, it is problematic that the story
rules out the history after the liberation in 1945.

After the liberation, Japanese staff withdrew from the island and the patients started to demand autonomy. The Korean staff, struggling for power, called up nation’s police to put them down. It led to a slaughter of about one hundred patients. After that, the corpses were even burnt with pine resin that patients had collected during the Japanese ruling. This incident had been silent before it was officially memorialized when the remains were excavated in 2001.

▲ The historyconcerning the slaughter of 1945engraved on the monument is not lucid.

Except
for this slaughter, more cases like the incident of Bitory island[3] and Oma island[4] have been reported but
soon forgotten from people’s minds. The prejudice and misunderstanding against
lepers are believed to be the main factor of a series of the persecution has
happened to them.[5]

In
East Asia, lepers were originally not the object of quarantine, and neither
they were in Japan.[6]
The idea of confining lepers to a specific space was introduced to the East
Asia along with the trade with Western powers. Western people regarded leprosy
as a nemesis of oneself based on a biblical worldview. The Japanese Empire, mimicking
western powers running many colonies all around the world, accepted the new concept
of ‘sanitation’ as a meaning of civilization and modernization. For these
reasons, Japanese Empire legislated for domestic segregation of lepers in 1907,
which had influenced on Japan until 1996. Additionally, Japanese policy towards leprosy patients was based on Eugenics which had
broadly implemented in western countries from 1910s to 1930s. Eugenic
saw the lepers as the object of eradication, therefore compulsory sterilization
and abortion were justified. While the scientific
reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, it became more brutal
in Japan and its colonies. The reason must be World War II which was intensified throughout early 1940s, and it
brought in the forced closure of hospitals that western missionaries had
operated in Korea by Japan. Also, Sorok leper colony turned
into kind of a penal colony where autonomously leave and escape was not
allowed.

What
is interesting is that prejudice and persecution against leprosy patients had
lasted in Korea and Japan until quite recently, despite the recommendation of
WHO proposing the outpatient treatment in the early 1960s. In Japan, the
incriminate quarantine policy was abolished in 1996, and many patients sued the
government for compensation and they won it in 2001. On the other hand, Korea
abolished it in 1963 due to financial difficulties, but patients have not been
compensated by the government. Act on Fact-Finding of Incidents Related to
Patients of Hansen’s Disease and Support for Living of Victims was implemented
in 2008, but actual compensation has not been conducted yet.

I
shall finish with a recondite story of Zhenkichi Hanai who was the hospital
director of Sorok island during the 1920s. He was admired for increasing
autonomy of the patients by granting freedom of religion and living style and
imposed reasonable amounts of labor on them. After he died, patients built a stone monument for him. During a period of
eliminating the remnants of the Japanese imperialism, the patients hid the
monument underground and later placed it in its original spot.

[3]An
incident that local residents slaughtered the patients who tried to cultivate
Bitori Island in 1957. The exact number of victims has yet to be reported.

[4] Although
patients of Sorok island reclaimed Oma island to build new settlements from
1962 to 1965, the government didn’t grant the land to the patients but to local
residents.

[5] The false
belief of the rumor that eating a child cures leprosy can be seen in the media
reports of disappearance of five children in 1992.

[6] For example,
according to historical documents, the Joseon Dynasty made every effort to cure
lepers. Also, In Japan, it was not strange to see many lepers begging for money
at temples and shrines or wherever people gathered.